The General Manager's Eye Watchful

There are numerous instances of boys of seventeen or eighteen starting at $200 a year, and in six or seven years rising to be accountants or managers of small rural branches on salaries of $1,000 or more. To have done that is good, and when this point is reached the man of ordinary capacity can look forward, provided he makes no serious blunder, to a slow and gradual increase of pay, and rise to the management of more important branches. Upon attaining a managership, the bank officer for the first time comes under the special notice of that great man, the general manager, he who makes and unmakes. To play the part of a good clerk and win promotion is well; but the qualities that made it possible do not always suffice to make a successful manager. For the man with real ability to reach the post of country manager is but to begin his real career. He must correspond almost daily with the head office. His chief is on the lookout all the time for good men to place in the best positions. He forms his impressions largely from the daily correspondence and from the manner in which the branch affairs are conducted. He is not apt to be impressed so much by smartness or adroitness as by common sense, clear-headedness, and steady, reliable judgment. When a manager succeeds in impressing his general manager with the belief that he possesses these qualities, generally speaking, he may rise quickly to the high-salaried branches, and, perhaps, eventually to the general managership itself. It used to be said that successful business men put their stupidest sons into banks as clerks. For their more intelligent sons, their own or some other mercantile business offered the best career. That idea no longer holds good. The spectacle of a rich man's son being dismissed from a bank's service because of incapacity is not at all uncommon ; on the other hand, there are an increasing number of instances to prove that the banking service has rich rewards for its most capable workers.

Attractiveness Of The Banking Profession

Banking is notoriously one of the genteel professions. Though the clerk needs something besides his position in the bank to enable him to take a place of any consequence in the society of the large towns and cities, he is able quite frequently to play the society lion in smaller places, more so, perhaps, in Canada than in the United States. The author some time ago received a letter from a Canadian bank clerk, who went to live in an American city after tasting of the social pleasures provided by an Ontario town. "Bank clerks," he said, "are not the demi-gods here that they are in Canada." A reason for the difference in standing exists in the dissimilarity of the positions of the banks in the two countries. The banks in the Republic have not much influence or power, nor are they much known, as a rule, outside the immediate locality of the single office maintained. Sometimes they do not command a great deal of respect even in that restricted area. But the big Canadian banks are a power in every part of the Dominion. Their officers are acquainted with the monetary affairs of the leading business men everywhere; the greatest business corporations, city and provincial governments, go to them for financial assistance. The importance and prestige of the banks have a national scope. Their high standing and great power are reflected in some degree upon every officer in their service.

The uncertainty as to the time and manner of his removal to another point adds to the interest the bank clerk inspires. In the cases of the younger, unattached men in the service this uncertainty instills a pleasureable excitement into the daily routine. To belong to the staff of a great Canadian bank is similar in some respects to being an officer in the army. In both services a strict discipline is maintained, and orders may come any day for service at a far-away point.